From spinning tops, to Scalectrix, the Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life has a wealth of toys to bring back childhood memories.

Museum Curator Pippa Griffith has been talking about the toys to Devon Live, and said the workshops for schools on toys are always popular.

“It includes the opportunity to handle and play with Victorian toys, as well as toys from the 1950s and ‘60s,” she said. “We are just in the process of re-organising our toy display with the toys displayed in a chronological order, showing the change of materials used.”

Children play with hoops in Castle Street, Tiverton

Popular Victorian and Edwardian toys included spinning tops, push and pull toys, dolls, puzzles and clockwork toys. The Nineteenth Century had seen the development of factory-made tin and clockwork toys and, of course, train sets. Children from wealthier families may have enjoyed rocking horses, dolls, jigsaws, Noah’s Arks and the tin toys. Those from poorer families would have had home-made toys, like peg dolls (which are also part of our school workshop) and skipping ropes. Balls could be made by stuffing rags with sawdust.

Pippa said: “In the museum’s collection we have some beautiful toys dating to this period, including some toy horses, and a wonderful photograph of a proud young boy with a similar horse taken in a photographic studio on Bampton Street, Tiverton.

A proud young boy with a similar horse

“We have some traditional toys like the hoop and stick, as well as balls and marbles. There is also a splendid railway engine called Tiny Tim which was given to a local boy on his fifth birthday in 1915. It was made by the Brislington Motor Constructional Works which was later known as Bristol Commercial Vehicles. They tended to build buses, but also made trucks and airplanes. We haven’t yet found any reference to the company making toys, so perhaps our Tiny Tim is very unusual.”

Building toys have been popular since the early 1900s, although wooden blocks would have been played with for many years before that. Meccano was patented by Frank Hornby in 1901 with reusable metal plates, strips, wheels and gears which were connected together using nuts and bolts and grub screws. The museum has a Meccano set in wooden box which dates from around the 1920s. The set still has its manual showing a wide range of models which could be made, from a sofa through to the Eiffel Tower. Transport toys became very popular in the 1920s with model trains, planes, boats and cars. Teddy bears also grew in popularity in the 1920s and ‘30s in Britain.

The Meccano Eiffel Tower

The 1930s saw the production of toys linking to the Disney cartoons, especially Minnie Mouse and Mickey Mouse. The much loved Monopoly board game made its first appearance in Britain in the ‘30s.

Pippa said: “Surprisingly, the museum does not have that many toys dating from the 1920s and ‘30s in its collections. We would also love to have more photographs showing local children from that era with their toys.”

In the 1950s and ‘60s, many children would have still played with similar toys as their parents with teddy bears, dolls and building sets. Construction toys continued to be popular. Brickplayer involved cementing real bricks together which presumably required lots of patience - especially if you were dismantling and soaking the cement off an earlier build. It was popular in the 1940s and 1950s, and the museum has a set on display. Another construction toy, Bayko, involved metal pins and blocks linking together, and was enjoyed from the 1930s to the 1960s. Lego was first made in 1949, with the modern Lego Brick being patented in 1958. The museum has a set from the 1960s on display where the bricks are stored in a wooden box with a sliding lid.

The 1950s saw a big rise in plastic toys. Well-known names such as Airfix and Scalextric became very popular, as did Matchbox and Corgi model cars. The 1960s saw the launch of more well-loved names, including Thunderbirds, Star Trek, Trolls, Etch-a-Sketch, Barbie, Sindy and Action Man. Film and television tie-ins influenced popular toys, notably Star Wars in the 1970s. Children in the 1980s enjoyed a wide range of toys including Care Bears, My Little Ponies, Transformers, Smurfs, Cabbage Patch Kids, Rubiks Cube and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

“We have quite a few toys from the 1950s and ‘60s at the museum, but would love to have a few more from the 1970s and ‘80s to add to our displays,” Pippa added.